1. Is Consistent with the Supremacy Clause, may a state refuse to follow this Court's holdings and permit indictment for a capital crime by a grand jury whose composition results from systematic exclusion of women and non-white persons?

2. Are federal courts precluded from reviewing the merits of a substantial federal constitutional claim when a state court failed to expressly invoke or rely on a state procedural rule as the basis of its decision and, instead, issued a ruling that is intertwined with the federal constitutional question?

3. May a federal court ignore the express holding in Hill v. Lockhart that this Court's Strickland standard governs ineffective assistance of counsel claims involving a guilty plea and instead require that a petitioner prove that counsel's advice "bears no relationship to a possible defense strategy" to prevail on a Sixth Amendment claim?

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